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Barbary Coast

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"Barbary" redirects here. For other uses, see Barbary (disambiguation) and Barbary Coast (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Barbaria (region).
A 17th-century map by the Dutch cartographer Jan Janssonius showing the Barbary Coast, here "Barbaria"

The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa. More specifically, the name refers to the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, as well as the Sultanate of Morocco from the 16th to 19th centuries.[1][2][3] The term originates from an exonym for the Berbers.[4][5]

History

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Ex-voto of a naval battle between a Turkish ship from Algiers (front) and a ship of the Order of Malta under Langon, 1719

Barbary was not always a unified political entity. From the 16th century onward, it was divided into four political entities—from west to east—the Alawi Sultanate, the Regency of Algiers, the Regency of Tunis, and the Regency of Tripoli. Major rulers and petty monarchs during the times of the Barbary states' plundering parties included the sultan of Morocco, the dey of Algiers, bey of Tunis, and pasha of Tripoli, respectively.[6]

In 1625, the pirate fleet of Algiers, by far the largest, numbered 100 ships of various sizes, carrying 8,000 to 10,000 men. The corsair industry alone accounted for 25 percent of the workforce of the city, not counting other activities of the port. The fleet only averaged 25 ships in the 1680s, but these were larger vessels than had been used since the 1620s, so the fleet still employed some 7,000 men. In addition, 2,500 men manned the pirate fleet of Tripoli, 3,000 in Tunis, and several thousand more in the various minor pirate bases such as Bona, Susa, Bizerta, and Salé. The corsairs were not solely natives of the cities where they were based; while many were Arabs and Berbers, there were also Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, and renegade Italians, especially Corsicans, among their number.[7]

Purchase of Christian captives in the Barbary states

The United States fought the Barbary Wars from 1801 to 1805 with some of the Barbary states[8] leading to the Battle of Derna the first overseas military land action of the United States and inspiring the opening line of the Marines' Hymn "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...".[9]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ben Rejeb, Lotfi (2012). "'The general belief of the world': Barbary as genre and discourse in Mediterranean history". European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire. 19 (1): 15. doi:10.1080/13507486.2012.643607. S2CID 159990075.
  2. ^ Hinz, Almut (2006). "Die "Seeräuberei der Barbareskenstaaten" im Lichte des europäischen und islamischen Völkerrechts". Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 39 (1): 46–65. JSTOR 43239304.
  3. ^ The Department of State bulletin. 1939. p. 3.
  4. ^ "Barbary | historical region, Africa". Britannica. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  5. ^ Murray, Hugh (1841). The Encyclopædia of Geography: Comprising a Complete Description of the Earth, Physical, Statistical, Civil, and Political. Lea and Blanchard.
  6. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barbary Pirates" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 383–384.
  7. ^ Gregory Hanlon. "The Twilight Of A Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats And European Conflicts, 1560-1800." Routledge: 1997. Pages 27–28.
  8. ^ U.S. Department of State. (November 2, 2024). "Barbary Wars". U.S. Department of State, Office Of The Historian.
  9. ^ U.S. Marines attacked Derna, Tripoli, Naval History and Heritage Command

Sources

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